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I have no problem with a more diverse Avengers. Just the idea that somehow every white male character needs to no longer be a white male character. Captain America / Steve Rogers being a man no longer in his WW2 era, Thor Odinson being able to represent Norse Mythology even more instead of less, & Iron-Man / Tony Stark being a rich white alcoholic is what I think defines those characters.

Give me all female X-Men & maybe even stop referring to them as X-Men. Give black Fantastic Four. Especially a Neil deGrasse Tyson version of Mr. Fantastic. A black Dare Devil instead of a black King Pin. And make sure Miss Marvel is still called Miss Marvel despite wearing Captain Marvel's outfit. Or let Miss Marvel stay Miss Marvel & some other female could be Captain Marvel.

RatGouf:I have no problem with a more diverse Avengers. Just the idea that somehow every white male character needs to no longer be a white male character. Captain America / Steve Rogers being a man no longer in his WW2 era, Thor Odinson being able to represent Norse Mythology even more instead of less, & Iron-Man / Tony Stark being a rich white alcoholic is what I think defines those characters.

Dr. Strange is in it and he's an old white dude[1], always has been. They did try (briefly) to replace him as Sorcerer Supreme with 70s blaxsploitation character "Brother Voodoo" but yeah that didn't work out.

[1] He was a rich old white dude as well, as a hot shot surgeon who would only treat the wealthy. Until his hands were ruined in a car accident and he wasted all his money on booze to drown in self-pity. Then he learned about a magical healer in Tibet called "The Master" and...

RatGouf:I have no problem with a more diverse Avengers. Just the idea that somehow every white male character needs to no longer be a white male character. Captain America / Steve Rogers being a man no longer in his WW2 era, Thor Odinson being able to represent Norse Mythology even more instead of less, & Iron-Man / Tony Stark being a rich white alcoholic is what I think defines those characters.

Dr. Strange is in it and he's an old white dude[1], always has been. They did try (briefly) to replace him as Sorcerer Supreme with 70s blaxsploitation character "Brother Voodoo" but yeah that didn't work out.

I feel sorry for Brother Voodoo since I like the video game character, Shadow Man.

Still a Doctor Strange who isn't a white male grabs my interest more than the original.

EditA rich white dude doctor isn't the same as a rich white dude business owner. That's like comparing Bill Goldberg to Ted Turner & declaring them to be the same when they aren't.

[1] He was a rich old white dude as well, as a hot shot surgeon who would only treat the wealthy. Until his hands were ruined in a car accident and he wasted all his money on booze to drown himself in self-pity. Then he learned about a magical healer in Tibet called "The Master" and...

Powerful Magical Spellcaster archetype, 2Asgardian battle maiden wth no nonsense personality, 2Enhanced super spy with cyborg body parts used by a nefarious organisation to assassinate against their will, 2Inhumans from that book nobody read, 2Former thief turned superhero who's now inherited the legacy title of a founding avenger, 2

This is f*cking stupid, this is actively LESS diverse than the current Avengers line-up. The only character who hasn't got a carbon copy of themselves on the same team is Ultron "Superior Ironman"

Burnouts3s3:Wait. On female Thor, isn't that Torunn, Thor's daughter? Or is it actually Thor but female?

This is actually hilarious on some levels. Basically Marvel realized that since they were getting so much attention with all the PC-ethnicity swapping and such that it would be a huge thing for their hype wagon to do it on a larger scale. What's funny is that a lot of these things have already happened before, but they didn't get much attention at the time. We've had several black versions of Captain America over the years (Battlestar, Patriot, etc...) and numerous men behind the mask when cap was indisposed, so really it's not really all that surprising. We've had numerous female versions of Thor as well, including the whole "Earth X" thing and the like. The thing about Thor is that as originally defined Thor was a sort of possessing entity, where a normal person could transform into Thor. Today people tend to forget all about Donald Blake, and others who have held the hammer, as well as bits like in "Infinity Gauntlet" about how when Thor was separated from his hammer in deep space he regressed into a normal human (stopped being Thor) and the host was dying until he got his hands back on the hammer and changed back. It seems more or less like someone remembered this, as opposed to the whole train of logic that created "Beta Ray Bill" as "Beta Ray Thor" where generally speaking being worthy to pick up the hammer should literally have made him Thor when he transformed (personality transfer and all) as opposed to simply giving him the powers, where he otherwise just pretty much remained Beta Ray Bill in a Thor suit. Furthermore during the whole "X-men In Asgard" thing Storm already replaced Thor as the God/goddess of Thunder, albeit briefly, so "Thor" was for about 15 minutes black and female. This is incidently part of the reason Ororo gives her attitude about being a goddess, it wasn't just the tribal role, but also having been given the role (albeit under control of some villains) briefly. She's one of the few mortals who can make that claim. :)

At any rate the big gimmick here is that they plan to just release the titles as "Thor" and "Captain America" as opposed to a title that makes the difference clear. They are not going to refer to this version as "She Thor", "Thor Girl" or a few other names, but just as "Thor". Just as Falcon will just be called "Captain America" while he holds the title. This will generate press, and of course sell a lot of comics as collectors run out to gobble up the series in hopes that at one time they will be valuable. The amount of time it will last will largely depend on how long the boom does. As a lot of Marvel fans will point out the whole "Milo Morales" Spider-Man series is perhaps the most popular comic few people actually read, it sells heavily because of collectors wanting the run before Marvel realizes that other than political praise nobody actually likes the character or the idea (right up there with the Sam Alexander version of Nova, people want Richard Rider), and of course the collector interest fades, which can then be re-kindled by the original hero coming back into the mantle one way or another (even death is not permanent) and that of course is another huge collector's boom. Basically explaining how Peter Parker returns to again be "Ultimate Spider Man" in the comics is an arc everyone is going to want to put in little plastic baggies and stuff in a closet along with the Milo Morales run so 20 years later they can say "this actually happened" and perhaps get some bucks for the whole set if they have more luck preserving their intact set than others (though like most collector exploitation, the whole problem is that when everyone saves this stuff nowadays, it means there is little value as anyone who would have an interest already has it, or enough people will have it on the market that prices will be low for new collectors).

One joke in some comics circles that shows up once in a while is what stupidly PC thing Marvel is going to do. If you've ever wondered why there have been a few pictures of Wolverine in a dress out there recently is one recurring joke is that as one of Marvel's most popular characters it's inevitable they will have to do something with him. One gag is the possible revelation that he's been a crossdresser for years, and while not gay (I mean this would be hard to recon without a huge universe reboot), will come out of the closet with his secret and insist on kicking butt in a fabulous wardrobe (the visual humor focusing on his height, and extremely hairy, stocky build). So far though Marvel has mostly just recycled their previous ideas for the most part, now that there is more attention on it.

I do have to admit that while I'd never support it in the long run, some other "ideas" like having Iron Man reveal himself to be a furry and run around in heavily armed crotchless fursuits and stuff would be funny... they could even sort of justify that as Iron Man has spent some time in kinky sex clubs like "The Hellfire Club" and I believe he was sort of under Emma's thumb for a while, to make it funnier they could always have he say she was surprised it took this long...

One that would be rather cold would be having Kitty Pryde confide in Majick that she's gay (to match the movie actress) and was secretly glad Colossus was buying into that whole "wait until I turn 18" stuff, and eventually provided an easy out by getting with that alien healer on Battleworld.... :)

Rest assured though, we will likely never see a white Black Panther.... though perhaps Steve Colbert's artwork (from his show) will actually be used briefly for a new Falcon. :)

I know, I know most of this is actually making light of the "serious political statements" but now that they are going full media-blitz with it, it's almost becoming a parody of the initial issues and attention.

RatGouf:I have no problem with a more diverse Avengers. Just the idea that somehow every white male character needs to no longer be a white male character. Captain America / Steve Rogers being a man no longer in his WW2 era, Thor Odinson being able to represent Norse Mythology even more instead of less, & Iron-Man / Tony Stark being a rich white alcoholic is what I think defines those characters.

Give me all female X-Men & maybe even stop referring to them as X-Men. Give black Fantastic Four. Especially a Neil deGrasse Tyson version of Mr. Fantastic. A black Dare Devil instead of a black King Pin. And make sure Miss Marvel is still called Miss Marvel despite wearing Captain Marvel's outfit. Or let Miss Marvel stay Miss Marvel & some other female could be Captain Marvel.

Well the thing is that they introduced a new Muslim Ms. Marvel using that name, they made the original Ms. Marvel Captain Marvel to keep her around as well, and probably also to dig into DC by using the name more frequently. Not to mention that she is supposed to have received the rank of Captain (In Marvel people who call themselves "Captain" usually have a logic behind it, unlike DC where people call themselves Captain-whatever for no good reason at all. For example I've never understood why DC's "Captain Marvel" is a "Captain" when he's the result of a mystical force thrown into a young boy. To say nothing of Captain Boomerang and others... the original Marvel version of Captain Marvel was an alien called Mar Vell who was a Captain in the Kree space force).

BigTuk:Diverse? you call that diverse. NOt seeing one fat person in that group, not even slightly chubby. DIverse my asss. just the same unrealistically proportioned impossibly muscled generic hard-bodies.

They need to be in perfect physical condition in order to fight crime.

BigTuk:Diverse? you call that diverse. NOt seeing one fat person in that group, not even slightly chubby. DIverse my asss. just the same unrealistically proportioned impossibly muscled generic hard-bodies.

They need to be in perfect physical condition in order to fight crime.

Have you seen the criminals.. I mean come on you actually have fat villains. I mean I won't even mention 'The Blob' (oh wait I just did)., but also come on, most of the bad guys are usually pretty outta shape or average mooks.

BigTuk:Diverse? you call that diverse. NOt seeing one fat person in that group, not even slightly chubby. DIverse my asss. just the same unrealistically proportioned impossibly muscled generic hard-bodies.

They need to be in perfect physical condition in order to fight crime.

Have you seen the criminals.. I mean come on you actually have fat villains. I mean I won't even mention 'The Blob' (oh wait I just did)., but also come on, most of the bad guys are usually pretty outta shape or average mooks.

BigTuk:Diverse? you call that diverse. NOt seeing one fat person in that group, not even slightly chubby. DIverse my asss. just the same unrealistically proportioned impossibly muscled generic hard-bodies.

They need to be in perfect physical condition in order to fight crime.

Have you seen the criminals.. I mean come on you actually have fat villains. I mean I won't even mention 'The Blob' (oh wait I just did)., but also come on, most of the bad guys are usually pretty outta shape or average mooks.

It's the same prejudice I tells you.

Good point. If Bob Richards from Tekken can supposedly learn to use weight gain to his advantage and form an entire fight style around it, then Marvel can definitely write up substantial junk science for a crimefighter of their own. The fascination wouldn't be their appearance, but how agile the hero is despite their stature.

They need to be in perfect physical condition in order to fight crime.

Have you seen the criminals.. I mean come on you actually have fat villains. I mean I won't even mention 'The Blob' (oh wait I just did)., but also come on, most of the bad guys are usually pretty outta shape or average mooks.

It's the same prejudice I tells you.

Good point. If Bob Richards from Tekken can supposedly learn to use weight gain to his advantage and form an entire fight style around it, then Marvel can definitely write up substantial junk science for a crimefighter of their own. The fascination wouldn't be their appearance, but how agile the hero is despite their stature.

Or just you know how they face the problem without the ability to double-back-flip-somersault out of it. That was one of the things that made/makes spider man interesting originally he wasn't some athletic hardbody... he was just a scrawny weakling and that mentality is what sort of influenced his fighting style. Evasion, distraction and surprise were his calling card.

But as for these new avengers. Just the same grizzled perfectly muscled hard-bodies that fall within the socially acceptable spectrum of handsome/attractive. In short, perfectly sculpted pretty people. This are always your good guys. Worship the pretty people. They are your saviours and masters.

Have you seen the criminals.. I mean come on you actually have fat villains. I mean I won't even mention 'The Blob' (oh wait I just did)., but also come on, most of the bad guys are usually pretty outta shape or average mooks.

It's the same prejudice I tells you.

Good point. If Bob Richards from Tekken can supposedly learn to use weight gain to his advantage and form an entire fight style around it, then Marvel can definitely write up substantial junk science for a crimefighter of their own. The fascination wouldn't be their appearance, but how agile the hero is despite their stature.

Or just you know how they face the problem without the ability to double-back-flip-somersault out of it. That was one of the things that made/makes spider man interesting originally he wasn't some athletic hardbody... he was just a scrawny weakling and that mentality is what sort of influenced his fighting style. Evasion, distraction and surprise were his calling card.

But as for these new avengers. Just the same grizzled perfectly muscled hard-bodies that fall within the socially acceptable spectrum of handsome/attractive. In short, perfectly sculpted pretty people. This are always your good guys. Worship the pretty people. They are your saviours and masters.

Yeah, this is where real change has to be visible in comics. Sure its not as simple to depict impressive movements between page frames and onion-skin drawings, than seeing it choreographed into a film or game, but.. When we look at fighting games, its easy to prejudge characters on their stature at the select screen. The lean ones look the most versatile, the heavy hardbodies are powerful but a bit telegraphing, and the lite ladies or smaller folks dish out odd amounts of damage considering their frame (unless its a grapple) which is more believable.

Then you get in, and see just how wildly different everyone is and how useful they are, when you learn their whole methodology in combat and how they pace themselves.

Diversity should go beyond the presence and social role that a particular person is in, but the certain faculties they have that make them so captivating, then reader won't judge at face value, they'll just be curious.

I echo many sentiments expressed, Gender or Race Swapping character for the sake of Diversity is BS, Now with characters like Cap, to an extent makes quite a lot of sense as Captain America is a symbol as well as a character, the character can be changed. Same with Thor, Like Thunderstrike back in the rockin 90s! "Extreeeeeeeeme!"

But then I think about the favorable aspect of creating a team of already established characters to be more diverse or create a more diverse group of characters from scratch... That isn't always successful and in the Case of Young Avengers which hit every mark while being critically successful do sell well.

As much as I'm not a fan of what Marvel is doing I suppose with the current climate in the industry, this is the best they could do (? :/)

Good point. If Bob Richards from Tekken can supposedly learn to use weight gain to his advantage and form an entire fight style around it, then Marvel can definitely write up substantial junk science for a crimefighter of their own. The fascination wouldn't be their appearance, but how agile the hero is despite their stature.

Or just you know how they face the problem without the ability to double-back-flip-somersault out of it. That was one of the things that made/makes spider man interesting originally he wasn't some athletic hardbody... he was just a scrawny weakling and that mentality is what sort of influenced his fighting style. Evasion, distraction and surprise were his calling card.

But as for these new avengers. Just the same grizzled perfectly muscled hard-bodies that fall within the socially acceptable spectrum of handsome/attractive. In short, perfectly sculpted pretty people. This are always your good guys. Worship the pretty people. They are your saviours and masters.

Yeah, this is where real change has to be visible in comics. Sure its not as simple to depict impressive movements between page frames and onion-skin drawings, than seeing it choreographed into a film or game, but.. When we look at fighting games, its easy to prejudge characters on their stature at the select screen. The lean ones look the most versatile, the heavy hardbodies are powerful but a bit telegraphing, and the lite ladies or smaller folks dish out odd amounts of damage considering their frame (unless its a grapple) which is more believable.

Then you get in, and see just how wildly different everyone is and how useful they are, when you learn their whole methodology in combat and how they pace themselves.

Diversity should go beyond the presence and social role that a particular person is in, but the certain faculties they have that make them so captivating, then reader won't judge at face value, they'll just be curious.

Y'know, I just love how the thin, muscular/well-endowed, classically beautiful/handsome images are the ones that should now be the source of shame and ridicule. Keep going down that road because eventually you'll turn the beauty standard bearers into what the other side was: the poor mistreated victims that are shunned and will garner enough sympathy that society will turn on the new beauty standard bearers; all of you current "everyday average-looking people".

The Falcon as the new Cap I can totally see, though I believe it would be outright retarded if he didn't use his Falcon wings since why the hell wouldn't he.

As for the new Thor, the only one I could really see taking the hammer and working in my head is Lady Sif. Is pure Asgardian, gives some personal correlation between the "old Thor" and "new Thor" and is also an established character that would make perfect sense to wield the hammer. A new character unless well presented would just be a gimmick as I feel it the same way I just don't see it working with any other random marvel character they might go with.

Other part that annoys me is that Steve Rodgers and old Thor would still be around, even though it may be depowered, so it's pretty obvious they can go back to being their respective roles without hesitation, taking away any sense of real commitment to the new identities.

Finally, 11 characters is too much for any team book and why the hell would you add Doctor Strange to any team? I can see it now "hey doc, why didn't you hocus pucos the problem away" "BECAUSE THE PLOT SAID I COULD NOT!". Dr Strange only really works as a plot device or by himself with problems of his scale, same reason the Surfer just doesn't work in team books.

Yeah I am actually inclined to agree that was a little bit stronger language than I was expecting which I don't really mind but it was a bit awkward, but also made the passing editorializing a little weird. I don't mind mr. Song at all but I will say I feel like a little calmness would go a long way.

[1] Brought to you by the Babysitters who don't appreciate Contributors making the Mods jobs that much harder.

Or just you know how they face the problem without the ability to double-back-flip-somersault out of it. That was one of the things that made/makes spider man interesting originally he wasn't some athletic hardbody... he was just a scrawny weakling and that mentality is what sort of influenced his fighting style. Evasion, distraction and surprise were his calling card.

But as for these new avengers. Just the same grizzled perfectly muscled hard-bodies that fall within the socially acceptable spectrum of handsome/attractive. In short, perfectly sculpted pretty people. This are always your good guys. Worship the pretty people. They are your saviours and masters.

Yeah, this is where real change has to be visible in comics. Sure its not as simple to depict impressive movements between page frames and onion-skin drawings, than seeing it choreographed into a film or game, but.. When we look at fighting games, its easy to prejudge characters on their stature at the select screen. The lean ones look the most versatile, the heavy hardbodies are powerful but a bit telegraphing, and the lite ladies or smaller folks dish out odd amounts of damage considering their frame (unless its a grapple) which is more believable.

Then you get in, and see just how wildly different everyone is and how useful they are, when you learn their whole methodology in combat and how they pace themselves.

Diversity should go beyond the presence and social role that a particular person is in, but the certain faculties they have that make them so captivating, then reader won't judge at face value, they'll just be curious.

Y'know, I just love how the thin, muscular/well-endowed, classically beautiful/handsome images are the ones that should now be the source of shame and ridicule. Keep going down that road because eventually you'll turn the beauty standard bearers into what the other side was: the poor mistreated victims that are shunned and will garner enough sympathy that society will turn on the new beauty standard bearers; all of you current "everyday average-looking people".

Wha. I'm not against beauty standards in fiction. Gotta have some hot bods and standard lean muscly types in the mix, I'm just saying I don't judge entirely at face value kinda like how some complainers do, and I think characters of all kinds need enough substance or different types of appeal to not be judged so quickly. Kinda like how fighting games find ways to accentuate all kinds of contestants and make them uniquely interesting when you get down to the bare bones of how they operate and its like you don't care AS much about their appearance. in order for consumers (much like one's here to stop judging characters so shallowly because of their beauty or because of their lack of, if theres a foundation to it is all. Like how typically hard bodies gotta be in combat because a lean athletic body is best for agility and resisistance, but if somebody brings a stature that's non typical that makes you think (okay this character clearly doesn't look like they're built for combat, and has some interesting workaround, you draw a different type of interest towards, a curiosity towards the character like...watching a nimble or out of shape dude literally defy science.

RatGouf:I have no problem with a more diverse Avengers. Just the idea that somehow every white male character needs to no longer be a white male character. Captain America / Steve Rogers being a man no longer in his WW2 era, Thor Odinson being able to represent Norse Mythology even more instead of less, & Iron-Man / Tony Stark being a rich white alcoholic is what I think defines those characters.

Give me all female X-Men & maybe even stop referring to them as X-Men. Give black Fantastic Four. Especially a Neil deGrasse Tyson version of Mr. Fantastic. A black Dare Devil instead of a black King Pin. And make sure Miss Marvel is still called Miss Marvel despite wearing Captain Marvel's outfit. Or let Miss Marvel stay Miss Marvel & some other female could be Captain Marvel.

I like the idea of Falcon becoming Captain America eventually (judging purely from Cap2), not sure about female Thor, though I'l admit thats a pretty cool character design.

Personally I think the best way to increase diversity is to push there excising minorities characters and create new ones and push those. It just feels weak to me if they truely believe the only way to to make a black of female character popular is to pass down a mantle previously held by a white male.

Soxafloppin:I like the idea of Falcon becoming Captain America eventually (judging purely from Cap2), not sure about female Thor, though I'l admit thats a pretty cool character design.

Personally I think the best way to increase diversity is to push there excising minorities characters and create new ones and push those. It just feels weak to me if they truely believe the only way to to make a black of female character popular is to pass down a mantle previously held by a white male.

The problem is that they push existing and new characters all the time, but they run into inertia, basically the WoW effect. Just like no MMO can ever match the sheer content of World of Warcraft because it's trying to compete with a product that is 10 years old, has 4 large expansion packs behind it, and 10 years of name recognition in the MMO market.

DC and Marvel are both littered with dozens or hundreds of B,C, and D-list characters, a lot of whom were attempts to push new angles and character archetypes in new directions. Yet, none of them broke into the fabled A-lister territory, because they can't compete with the 50,60,70+ years of history that some of these characters have.

Having a big name A-lister "pass the mantle" has been a staple of comic books for 30+ years, it's an old, well-known trick, and it keeps happening because it works. Just like, how one of the Robins becomes Batman for a year or two, or Bucky was Captain America for awhile, or when Black Panther temporarily took over for Bullseye, giving a lesser known character the title of a more popular character puts that character in to the spotlight. Say you don't like it as much as you want, but comic book companies don't want to always take the risk of building a new character, advertising the shit out of them, then maybe having them reach b-list status after a decade or two with a one in a million chance of them maybe being recognized alongside the A-listers (although never actually reaching their level).

Michael Morales as the Ultimate Spider man, managed to garner more sales, and character recognition in his few short years than dozens and dozens of dedicated characters created to be new, diverse and interesting. These changes are always, always temporary, and when they work, the characters who temporarily held the mantle often become bigger parts of their universe and take some of that popularity and inertia of the bigger name character with them when everything reverts back to the way it was before.

Steve Rogers will eventually get his power back and become Captain America again, and if the temporary Avengers team does well, when Sam Wilson becomes the Falcon again, he will see a boost in popularity and relevence that will basically rocket him far above "original" characters that have been fighting to break into the big leagues for decades now.

One of the sad facts of advertising, is that people say they want originality, but when actually confronted with what to spend their money on the majority will go for what's familiar pretty much every time. To put it another way, a year or two as Captain America will do more for the Falcon's fame and notoriety than what 2 decades of team-ups, series, and crossovers did for Luke Cage.

Give me all female X-Men & maybe even stop referring to them as X-Men.

There is an all female x-men series right now, it's just called "X-Men". I can't comment on the quality, but according to the comics forum I frequent it's pretty good (always be weary of these these forums as they quickly turns into echo chambers).